SLAVERY (PART TWO) Mercantilism Mercantilism Royal Monopolies (Spain & Portugal) proved to be inefficient and expensive… A new framework within which government-protected private enterprise for the Atlantic economy is created (capitalism and mercantilism)

SLAVERY (PART TWO) Mercantilism (cont.) The new mercantilist framework included: Banks Chartered companies E.g. Dutch West India Company and the French Royal African Company Stock exchanges & joint stock companies Insurance companies

SLAVERY (PART TWO) Mercantilism (cont.) Generally, state policies promoted private investment in overseas trade and accumulation of capital in the form of precious metals. There was also a significant use of military force to pursue commercial dominance.

SLAVERY (PART TWO) Mercantilism (cont.) After supplanting the Dutch, the French and the English revoke the monopoly privileges of their chartered companies: They continue to use tariffs to prevent foreign access to trade with their colonies. The Atlantic becomes the major trading area for the British, the French, and the Portuguese…

SLAVERY (PART TWO) The Atlantic Circuit The Atlantic Circuit was a clockwise network of trade routes going from Europe to Africa, from Africa to the plantation colonies of the Americas (the Middle Passage), and then from the colonies to Europe. If all went well, a ship would make a profit on each leg of the circuit…

The Atlantic Circuit (cont.) SLAVERY (PART TWO) The Atlantic Circuit (cont.) As the Atlantic system developed, increased demand for sugar in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe was associated with an increase in the flow of slaves from Africa to the New World.

The Atlantic Circuit (cont.) SLAVERY (PART TWO) The Atlantic Circuit (cont.) The slave trade was a highly specialized business in which chartered companies (in the seventeenth century) and then private traders (in the eighteenth century) purchased slaves in Africa, packed them into specially designed or modified ships, and delivered them for sale to the plantation colonies.

Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

“Coffin” Position Below Deck

The Atlantic Circuit (cont.) SLAVERY (PART TWO) The Atlantic Circuit (cont.) Disease, maltreatment, suicide, and psychological depression all contributed to the average death rate of one out of every six slaves shipped on the Middle Passage (?) Disease was the single most important cause of death, killing the European crew of the slave ships at roughly the same rate as it killed the slaves themselves!